--- title: Why DeepSeek is cheap at scale but expensive to run locally description: DeepSeek-V3 and similar mixture-of-experts models require high batch sizes to run efficiently due to their architecture. GPUs perform best with large matrix... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/why-deepseek-is-cheap-at-scale-but-expensive-to-run-locally-0l7watfec twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Why DeepSeek is cheap at scale but expensive to run locally | daily.dev og:description: DeepSeek-V3 and similar mixture-of-experts models require high batch sizes to run efficiently due to their architecture. GPUs perform best with large matrix... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/why-deepseek-is-cheap-at-scale-but-expensive-to-run-locally-0l7watfec og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/0L7wATfec.png og:image:alt: Why DeepSeek is cheap at scale but expensive to run locally og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Why DeepSeek is cheap at scale but expensive to run locally **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 12 min read · 3 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary DeepSeek-V3 and similar mixture-of-experts models require high batch sizes to run efficiently due to their architecture. GPUs perform best with large matrix multiplications, so inference servers batch multiple user requests together. Models with many experts and layers need larger batches to avoid pipeline bubbles and keep all experts busy, which increases latency but dramatically improves throughput. This explains why DeepSeek is cost-effective at scale but inefficient for single-user local deployment. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: --- Tags: [#ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ai), [#machine-learning](https://daily.dev/tags/machine-learning), [#performance](https://daily.dev/tags/performance), [#gpu](https://daily.dev/tags/gpu), [#deepseek](https://daily.dev/tags/deepseek) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/why-deepseek-is-cheap-at-scale-but-expensive-to-run-locally-0l7watfec) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Why DeepSeek is cheap at scale but expensive to run locally","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-deepseek-is-cheap-at-scale-but-expensive-to-run-locally-0l7watfec","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-deepseek-is-cheap-at-scale-but-expensive-to-run-locally-0l7watfec"},"datePublished":"2025-06-01T14:24:58.845Z","dateModified":"2025-06-01T14:25:24.294Z","description":"DeepSeek-V3 and similar mixture-of-experts models require high batch sizes to run efficiently due to their architecture. 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